Toolkit

On this page you will find a list of software that we feel you should have on your computer to aid you in Indigenous language maintenance, and it also takes minimal time and maybe skill to use, we will call this your “language computer toolkit”.We will also list other software which we know about but may not necessarily use.If you would like to suggest a piece of software please do so by sending us a message via the Contact Us page

Language Computer Toolkit

Miromaa - Of course we are going to have this program first, this is the one which we developed and we think it is pretty good.So what is it? Miromaa is a program which we have developed to aid in Aboriginal language work; it is an easy to use, user friendly database to help you gather, organise, analyse and produce outcomes for your language work.The program enforces good archive practise and helps you gather any and all evidences of language including, text, audio, images and video. You can also use it to store your digitised documents for example PDF and Word documents, Excel spreadsheets plus more.It has a secure environment which can only be accessed by username and password, it can help you work on multiple languages or dialects and it also has a learning area where you can begin learning immediately.The program can run on either a stand-alone desktop or on a network and you are not just limited to using Miromaa only, as the program has the ability to export its data in various forms including SIL Shoebox/Toolbox text file format, Lexique Pro text file format, Microsoft Word, tables and more.

Lexique Pro - this is a great program for making interactive lexicons or word lists, it also makes picture dictionaries and lexicons for CD’s and websites.

Audacity - Is an excellent freeware program for doing your audio editing, when you download it you have to remember to also get the mp3 encoder file for converting your wave files to mp3’s.

Toolbox - Now this is a very hard program to use, you need to have specific training for it which is best done hands on. We use it for making Dictionaries mainly, linguists do a lot more with it, but what we have done is made Miromaa compatible with it so you can transfer all of your Miromaa data into Toolbox, this also goes for Lexique Pro.

Microsoft Software - Believe it or not but the majority of us more than likely have a Windows based PC, some may have an Apple but more of us not. Now at your fingertips is usually some great software already installed, if you have MS Office that is. The ones which we recommend that you should get to know really well are:

OpenOffice.org 3 - is the leading open-source (FREE) office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose and is a great alternative to Microsoft Office.

Keyman - Keyman Desktop is a market-leading keyboard mapping solution, designed with the user in mind. Well-supported across Windows®-based software, Keyman brings a simple solution to the complexity of typing in a range of languages and scripts that are either unsupported or only partly supported by the operating system.

Software not yet in our Toolkit (but being tested)

Fieldworks Langauge Explorer - FieldWorks Language Explorer is the lexical and text tools component of SIL FieldWorks. It is an open source desktop application designed to help field linguists perform many common tasks. It can help you: elicit and record lexical information, create dictionaries, interlinearize texts, analyse, discourse features, study morpholog.

Transcriber - Transcriber is a tool for assisting the manual annotation of speech signals.

Picasa - Picasa is a free software download from Google that helps you:

Locate and organise all the photos on your computer.

Edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks.

Share your photos with others through email, prints and on the web: it’s fast, easy and free.

Paint.NET - Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.